


The Rules of Engagement

by Pollydoodles



Series: The Wider Pizza-Verse [10]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-17
Updated: 2016-06-17
Packaged: 2018-07-15 16:50:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,090
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7230664
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pollydoodles/pseuds/Pollydoodles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky Barnes and the fall out from THAT kiss.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Rules of Engagement

“Where have you been, pal?”

Steve looked up expectantly with a soft smile on his face as the door to his apartment opened, and Bucky slid through it. Barton’s dog, as ever, slunk behind him - close to his heels and nose practically bumping the back of his knees as he walked. Lucky was like a shadow, only somehow more persistent. Steve smiled to himself. There was something in the combination of the dog and Darcy that had hauled Bucky out of the somewhat reclusive shell he’d been locked into. Steve thought that he’d be hard-pressed to choose between the pair of them which had helped Bucky the most. 

The other man was silent, which wasn’t exactly unusual, and Steve knew better than to think he’d get an instant answer. Bucky liked to work through his thoughts before he let them out into the world, as though they needed some careful consideration before he could commit to them. 

It was a stark contrast to the Bucky he remembered, but it was the Bucky that he had, and lord knew that Steve was thankful everyday that he had anything at all. 

Bucky wandered across the kitchenette, skirting the pile of clothing Steve had left on the floor - he did mean to put it away properly, and he would, eventually - and stared contemplatively at the fridge door. Steve, who was pretending to still be reading the book he had been thumbing through when Bucky arrived, kept a careful watch on him. The dog plonked himself at Bucky’s feet and stared up at the man adoringly as he squinted at the paper sellotaped to the fridge door. 

He was reading the rules again. 

Bucky tended to do that every so often. Steve’s working theory was that the other man wasn’t always quite sure what was expected and what was not. Checking the rules let him know what expectations the others had of him, so that he could act accordingly. Or, occasionally, let Steve know that he’d done something he now realised he shouldn’t, so Steve could work on damage control.

Darcy, who had written them out painstakingly in the clearest handwriting she could muster before taping them firmly at eye height - Steve had re-adjusted it quietly to his and Bucky’s eye-line when she’d left - said that it gave Bucky autonomy. 

She was a big believer in Bucky being able to make his own choices without having to ask other people all the time. She’d argued strongly for it, time and time again, and if Steve hadn’t been overawed by her before that, it would have tipped him over the edge. The list, therefore, was something that the man could check when he needed to, for reassurance, and feel as though it was under his own steam. It seemed to work, and Steve had only had to re-make the list once after an adjustment from Tony. 

Bucky had a finger on it now, running it along each line carefully, and Steve thought he could see his lips moving as he traced each sentence slowly. It rather looked as though he was checking each rule twice, and more, and Steve tilted his head to watch him. Eventually, Bucky nodded to himself, and stepped back from the fridge, apparently satisfied. 

The couch sank as Bucky dropped into it, almost on top of Steve; because Bucky had only two settings for personal space. He either shied away from touch so completely that he’d be two chairs away or more, huddled and suspicious, just in case he accidentally brushed against someone else, or he’d sit on top of them.

There was nothing, it seemed, in between.

They’d struggled with it; Steve initially and latterly Darcy, and thankfully now there was a lot less of the first but what they’d managed to swap it for was a good deal more of the second. Steve wasn't complaining, and he was fairly certain Darcy wasn't either, not with the way that he’d seen Bucky curl into her like a cat searching for warmth, loose limbed arms tucked around each other and the breath in their chests rising as one, although that there was a mild complication he'd been puzzling over for a while.

“There’s no rule.”

“What’s that, Buck?” Steve asked, flicking a page in his book in what he hoped was a nonchalant manner and hoping he’d remember the page number later as he’d not taken in a single word on the damn thing. Bucky breathed deeply beside him, looking down at his hands which were placed on his knees, one pink and healthy, the other silver that glinted in the sunlight that streamed through the open window. Lucky, who’d arranged himself in between the man’s legs, laid his chin against one knee and placed a paw next to it. Bucky, staring downwards, tugged gently on the dog’s ears and petted him. 

Steve waited, patient as he’d learned to be with the other man. It was a moment or two before he managed to answer. 

“No rule. Nothing about not kissing Darcy.”

Steve put the book he’d not been able to concentrate on reading down carefully on the arm of the couch, though inwardly he was glad he'd not been drinking anything as it would have been all over the carpet. He took a deep breath of his own and looked over at the other man, trying to collect his thoughts up from where they'd scattered all over the inside of his brain.

“So you want to kiss Darcy, huh?” 

Bucky shook his head.

Steve twisted on the couch then, turning his body fully towards Bucky - inasmuch as he was able, given the closeness of the other man - and fixed his friend with a look. Confusion ran through him, and he fought to keep a hold on it. Bucky followed Darcy like a puppy, had done practically from the moment he'd met her. They’d become so close, an easy little relationship that ended often in tangled limbs and sleepy hugs. Steve had been sure, so sure, that Bucky wanted more from Darcy; but hadn't the right words to express himself. 

“You... Don't want to kiss Darcy.” Steve said slowly, rolling the words around his mouth and wondering how on earth they'd ever move forward from this revelation. The little brunette, he knew, was gone on Bucky. Even if she couldn't quite admit it fully to herself, even if she'd never tell Bucky to his face. Steve knew that, and Steve also knew that Darcy was a girl who would suck it up and carry on, even with her heart in broken little pieces inside her chest.

Bucky shook his head again, more firmly this time. 

“I already did.”

Steve blinked.

“You… You did?” 

Bucky nodded, and then Steve saw a hint of a smile on his friend’s face, a soft look dancing quietly in his blue eyes that Steve remembered seeing once or twice so many years ago. He’d thought that side of Bucky had been lost to the ravages of time and the horrors that he had been subjected to, fallen in that snow ridden ravine along with so much else that had made James Buchanan Barnes the man he’d been before. 

He resisted, with no small amount of difficulty, the overwhelming urge to throw his arms around the other man and drag him close to his chest. To pull him in tight and laugh, pleased, the way Bucky would have done if Steve had ever managed to snag himself a date back in their youth. Instead Steve smiled himself and clapped a hand to Bucky’s back, causing the dark haired man to look to him in surprise. 

“So what did she say?” He asked, letting his hand rest across the back of Bucky’s shoulders and that wide smile still painted over his face. He thought there was a good chance it might not fade for a while. The sharp twist of pleasure at seeing the look on his friend’s face; the unexpected gesture that he’d given Darcy and the memory of her face as she’d looked at him from across the kitchen floor and told him that she loved Bucky, ran through him like the first burn of a new fire. 

Bucky looked confused. “Say?” 

Steve’s pulse stuttered in his veins, but he recovered gamely. “Why don’t you walk me through it?”

“I kissed her.” Bucky repeated. “I…” He started to look a little lost in the face of Steve’s question, and he could see that the dark-haired man was starting to chew over what he’d asked. “I kissed her. There’s no rule.” There was a hint of panic in the edge of his voice and he shifted awkwardly on the couch, moving away from Steve and a twitch beginning in his jawline. Steve, who could see the rising confusion in the other man, placed a large hand on the knee closest to him and squeezed gently, trying to bring some calm back to the conversation. 

“You’re right,” He said in a low voice, keeping his tone even and eyes fixed carefully on Bucky, who was still twitching a little where he sat and pulling on each finger of his left hand in turn with those on his right. He did that sometimes, something like a nervous habit that had him tugging on each cold metal finger like a routine, a pattern that he had to follow. Steve wasn’t quite sure if it brought him comfort or not.

“You’re right, Buck,” Steve repeated soothingly, scooting a little closer but mindful that Bucky in this state was liable to go one of two ways - insulated and silent for the rest of the afternoon, or explode in a fit of anger at something he was struggling to understand, dealing with it the only way he had been taught to do with a threat. He made sure to leave enough space between them that the other man wouldn’t feel as though he couldn’t breathe. “There’s no rule, it's fine.”

“There’s no rule,” Bucky said quietly, head dropped almost to his chest and voice practically a whisper. Steve understood that he was trying to reassure himself, that he’d done the right thing, or at least not something that would bring trouble. “There’s no rule, so, so, it’s okay. It’s okay?” A pair of blue eyes fixed on Steve, searching for reassurance. Steve squeezed again on Bucky’s knee, and, hesitantly, a hand covered Steve’s and squeezed back. 

“Yeah, Buck, it’s okay,” He said, firmly. Sometimes Bucky’s grasp on social etiquette wasn’t what it should have been, and the poor guy was well aware of it, even if he couldn’t always remember what it was that he was supposed to do. There had been a few instances where misinterpretation had lead to, well. Difficulties was a polite way of putting it. Sometimes it made life awkward, and it had meant, in the past, that the other Avengers skirted Bucky warily a lot of the time. It pulled at Steve’s heart to see it, the way they’d avoided his friend, but something inside him understood. 

Darcy, on the other hand, had never shied away from Bucky. She’d accepted him for the man that he was, and didn’t try to push him to be the man she thought he should be. Steve knew that, on occasion, he’d been guilty himself of pushing too hard, wanting too much, of looking at Bucky and only seeing the past. Darcy, he thought, had been good for him, too. Reminding him of what he had, rather than what he’d lost. 

“Did she kiss you back?” Steve asked tentatively, unsure whether he was merrily waving a naked flame over a powder keg by asking it. Bucky, head still low and shaggy hair still falling across his face, nodded slightly, still mostly tangled in thoughts that rumbled around the inside of his head and confused him. Steve felt his muscles relax, both because Bucky hadn’t gone up in smoke and also because the little brunette had finally let herself go. 

“Well that’s good, right?” He said, knocking Bucky lightly with his shoulder, smiling. The other man raised his head, pushing back straggling strands of dark hair and then he too, smiled. It was slow, and small, but it was there. Lucky whined and thumped his tail against the hardwood floor, and the dark haired man reached out to fumble at his ears again. The dog let his tongue lol from his mouth, panting happily. 

“Yeah,” Bucky said into his chest. “Yeah, it’s good.”


End file.
